What Is an Authoritative Backlink?

At Results Driven Marketing, LLC we are asked every day, by clients and others what exactly is the makeup of an authoritative backlink. This page provides the technical considerations that we use and value and that we share with clients, prospects, and others.

What is a Backlink?

According to MOZ “Backlinks, also called “inbound links” or “incoming links,” are created when one website links to another. The link to an external website is called a backlink”

Why are backlinks important?

Again Moz states that “backlinks are especially valuable for SEO because they represent a “vote of confidence” from one site to another.

In essence, backlinks to your website are a signal to search engines that others vouch for your content. If many sites link to the same webpage or website, search engines can infer that content is worth linking to, and therefore also worth surfacing on a SERP. So, earning these backlinks can have a positive effect on a site’s ranking position or search visibility.”

How Do Backlinks Get you Business?

Backlinks are the ranking signals that the search engines use and need if a website is to be found, Bot crawled and recognized. When this happens, the website with higher authority backlinks will receive better placement in the organic search rankings. The reward for the backlinks is that the search engines will move the website up to the top positions on the search engines organic result page.

A website that has a higher quantity of more valuable backlinks is guaranteed to have a higher domain authority. This means that search engines like Google, Bing.com, and Yahoo will each recognize your website as being more legitimate for people that are searching for the particular topic that your website caters to. Basically, by being considered legitimate by Google and the others search engines, they will bump your website on their result listings page.

Here are RDM’s Technical viewpoints and the characteristics required for high-quality, authoritative backlinks:

Does the referring domain provide authority?

A referring domain of high quality configured using SEO best practices

The website ranks well in Google. Page Authority and Domain Authority

The domain has many referring domains.

Does the referring domain have relevance to your industry?

Your site and the external link be relevant to answer a question within the niche.

There should be internal content links in the website that provides advice for that niche.

Is the referring domain unique?

If it links to many of your competitors, it may not be unique.

Linking to Informational sites and sources convey uniqueness.

What does the website traffic look like?

The referring domain should have good traffic numbers/visitors.

A blog should have an active/growing readership.

Has all social media been linked for active and monitored engagement?

What are other important backlink properties

The website must pass the Manual Link Evaluation Test (MLET). Is the content relevant to the link? Was the content rendered what you expected to see?

Has links that are of similar or provides content that complement the page or text.

Linking page should not have more than one link for every 100 words.

The site should be up-to-date and have SSL.

The Site Links only to relevant content.

Anchor Text should be non-commercial and proportioned throughout the site.

Guestbooks from across the world should be very minimal.

Must not show signs of discrimination, sexism, racism, religion or any other negative

The properties listed above all are all white-hat SEO tactics meaning that they follow Google’s Quality Guidelines. There are other items that are subjective that could make this list. These are the most prominent properties or characteristics for referring domains.

At Results Driven Marketing, LLC we are Turning Clicks Into Clients® every day. Many firms send you data regarding impressions and other data that is irrelevant to your needs. When businesses are looking for form submissions, phone calls, and qualified leads impressions, don’t get clients. Clicks get the clients.

Mr. Bannan has 30+ years of building businesses from the ground up. He is an expert at sales, marketing and dreaming! Mr. Bannan is a doer, team leader, and cares about getting his clients results. When Mr. Bannan is not actively seeking new ways to improve the organization’s technology and strategies, he is a dedicated husband and father of three.